


Dream Again

by noodledome



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), BAMF Crowley (Good Omens), First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 12:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20796515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noodledome/pseuds/noodledome
Summary: Crowley still sleeps - he’s used to it now, and likes the ritual of taking off the day and London’s smoke and curling up in his pajamas - but the dreams are getting...weird.  Now, he’s flying amongst his creations, but then he’s...falling?  His wings are gone and he’s plummeting back to Earth, gasping for air he shouldn’t need, but that isn’t there; the earth opens beneath him and he feels the dirt suck at his ankles as he starts sinking down, knowing that this time, he’ll never, ever come back up; he’s back in the time-frozen desert, but he’s not alone, it’s much worse - he’s surrounded by demons, crawling all over him and each other, claustrophobic and trapped and frozen there for all eternity.  But then - every time - Aziraphale turns up.  Always Aziraphale from the Garden, flaming sword in hand.





	Dream Again

After the Apocalypse-that-wasn’t, things mostly go back to the way they were. The sun still shines, the bookshop is still closed more than it’s open, and Crowley still loves a good lie-in. Every night (1), he slips between the sheets, silken pajamas rubbing across his skin like his scales slipping over themselves, and loses himself to - not oblivion, no point in that, but to his imagination. 

He dreams. Before the almost-end, his dreams were always expansive, if not pleasant.(2) He felt his cramped back muscles burn in the most pleasant way as stretched his wings out and flew among his creations; sweet grass tickled his red-scaled belly as he lay under That Tree, in the Garden.(3) 

But lately, it’s not like that. Crowley still sleeps - he’s used to it now, and likes the ritual of taking off the day and London’s smoke and curling up in his pajamas - but the dreams are getting...weird. Now, he’s flying amongst his creations, but then he’s...falling? His wings are gone and he’s plummeting back to Earth, gasping for air he shouldn’t need, but that isn’t there; the earth opens beneath him and he feels the dirt suck at his ankles as he starts sinking down, knowing that this time, he’ll never, ever come back up; he’s back in the time-frozen desert, but he’s not alone, it’s much worse - he’s surrounded by demons, crawling all over him and each other, claustrophobic and trapped and frozen there for all eternity. But then - every time - Aziraphale turns up. Always Aziraphale from the Garden, flaming sword in hand. He catches falling Crowley in his arms like a fainting damsel from those frankly awful novels he was always reading in the early 1900s; he grabs Crowley’s wrist with a firm, dry grip and yanks him up out of the sucking earth; he descends from the blazing blue sky with his blazing sword and literally cuts Crowley free from that grasping hell. 

Crowley wakes from these dreams gasping and dripping with sour fear-sweat, but he finds that he doesn’t stop sleeping. If Crowley were as given to introspection as he was to imagination, he might have said they were cathartic; as he wasn’t, he just feels his bed drawing him back each night, with a thrill of _fearanticipationhope_ circling in his gut.

During the day, Crowley still meanders over to the bookshop to make a general nuisance of himself. If he’s there more often than he used to be (4), neither of them mention it.(5) He wants to be near, and he can feel that Aziraphale does, too. They are locked in a binary orbit now; they’re finally free to associate openly, but that’s not even why, not yet. Crowley, at least, can’t trust that Aziraphale will be safe alone when the memory of their _extraordinary renditions_ (6) - the bound hands, the feeling of his heels being drug along the pavement as he watched Aziraphale-as-him nearly get his head bashed in by Hastur and the other bastards - are so very fresh. Aziraphale is the _nice one_.(7) The one who doesn’t kill people. He only even went through with trying to shoot Adam because Crowley was badgering him to do it, raw-throated and desperate, eyes still burning from the smoke of his Bentley. Dream-Aziraphale may have his sword, but real Aziraphale gave that away (again), and he’s the nice one, and Crowley just wants to keep close. Just in case.

Each night, though, he sobers up and takes his leave (8), heading to his bed where Aziraphale can save him again, and again, and again. He hasn’t mentioned it to Aziraphale, of course; the mere thought crossed his mind once and he had to talk himself out of just disappearing for a week out of embarrassment.

Then, one night, about a month after the Apocawasn’t, he’s dreaming again, the one where he’s being sucked down into hell, but...Aziraphale isn’t there. He’s not there, and the clods of earth are around Crowley’s knees now, and his feet are getting wet in the cold, muddy water table, and Aziraphale _still isn’t there_. He’s up to his waist now, and starting to properly panic - _can they get me in dreams, now?_ \- he wonders wildly, but as he starts to claw at the grass around him for something, anything to grasp, Aziraphale finally appears. But it’s not Garden-Aziraphale, it’s his own Aziraphale, in his worn waistcoat, grasping Crowley’s shaking, filthy arms and pulling with a strength Crowley wouldn’t have expected him to have, and he’s shouting? Crowley’s ears, with the logic of dreams, can’t quite hear him, even though he can see every molar in the back of Aziraphale’s mouth, he’s so close. He just needs to focus. He grounds himself in the pain of Aziraphale’s warm hands yanking _hard_, trying to pull him free, and looks straight into the angel’s eyes, wide with fear and desperation. The cotton-wool muffling lifts away, and he hears - _Crowley! CROWLEY! WAKE UP!_

Crowley gasps and sits straight up in bed and sees - well, he must still be dreaming, because Aziraphale is there, standing at the foot of his bed, and he’s got a _sword_ that he’s swinging at a demon one-handed while shield-bashing two more back. There are six or seven demons, all trying to get past him to get to Crowley, and this is a weird dream, because Aziraphale’s got the sword, but he’s wearing his regular clothes, and he’s shouting again - 

“Crowley, WAKE UP! A little _help_ here!” Aziraphale discorporates one demon with that lightning-fast sword while another is trying to grab his shield, and _oh my - Whoever, this isn’t a dream_. Aziraphale is still holding his own like the actual trained soldier Crowley always forgets he is, but there are too many of them. One of them wrenches him down by his shield, twisting his arm painfully; he cries out, and another grabs his sword arm; one of the demons jerks his head back by his glowing curls and lifts an infernal-looking dagger and Crowley feels something inside him _explode_. Some kind of shockwave rips through the room, and the demons are just - gone. His throat is raw (9), he feels like his guts got ripped out through his ears, and the room reeks of brimstone, but they’re gone, and Aziraphale is on one knee on his floor, panting, propped up on his shield.

“Crowley,” he says to the floor, his own voice low and ragged from shouting, “what in heaven’s name did you do?”

Crowley blinks a few times. He feels completely hollowed out. “Not sure, actually. Didn’t know I could do that.” He collapses back onto his pillow (10). There’s a clang and clatter as the sword and shield hit the floor, and the mattress dips when Aziraphale crawls onto the bed, grey-faced and looking even more exhausted than Crowley feels. He lays those perfect glowing curls on the pillow next to Crowley’s and closes his eyes. “Okay there, angel?” Crowley murmurs, his own eyes already sliding shut again.

Aziraphale hums an affirmative, mostly asleep himself. “Just….need a little rest.”

Crowley’s last waking thought is _wait, what was all that about?_ before sleep pulls him back under, too. 

This time, he doesn’t dream. 

When Crowley wakes, slowly, like surfacing from deep water, Aziraphale is still laying beside him, but awake now, looking at him with an unreadable expression. Crowley blinks slowly a couple of times, looking back at the face he knows better than his own, now; the one fixed point in his six thousand years on this earth. He feels a swell of gratitude to Someone that his angel is still here, safe, and then -

“What the _Heaven _was all that?” Crowley sits up, suddenly furious. “You could have been discorporated. _Again_. You could have been _destroyed_.” He’s shaking now, and it’s horribly embarrassing, but he can’t seem to stop it. He can’t seem to stop the shaking, or this avalanche of words, or from thinking of the Gentileschi-esque tableau of Aziraphale, dragged to the ground in the dark of Crowley’s room, trapped in the swing of that dagger, and he’s _furious_. 

“I was saving you!” Aziraphale sits half-up on his elbows and has the audacity to look offended. “Or hadn’t you noticed the half-dozen demons in your bedroom?”

“_Hadn’t you noticed the half-dozen - _of course I noticed it!” Crowley can feel his frustration rising, like smoke in a burning bookshop. “But - “ He finally wakes all the way up and realizes - “why were you _here_?”

Aziraphale finally stops looking offended and slides his eyes sideways into something more like abashed. “Well, you see - “ He stops and sits up properly. 

Crowley gestures impatiently, _yes, go on_. 

“Well, I. I _may_ have been - “ He stops again, looking very much like he’d like to pull the blanket over his head and disappear. 

“Out with it, angel,” Crowley says flatly. 

“Imayhavebeenguardingyourflat,” Aziraphale mutters, cheeks pinking. 

Crowley feels his mouth fall open. “You’ve been _what.”_

“I was guarding your flat!” Aziraphale says, glaring at Crowley with that mulish _I know you’re not going to like this but I’m not one bit sorry_ look that Crowley knows so well by now. 

Crowley wants to tear off his own face in frustration and confusion. “I _heard_ you, but _why_ were you guarding my flat?”

“Well, I _may_ have set up some...precautions around your building in case any demons tried to come by.” Aziraphale looks away guiltily, but honestly, Crowley had done the same at the bookshop. “Something tried to get in, so I popped straight over, and when I saw it was a demon with a dagger trying to get into your place, I _may_ have panicked a bit and miracled up a sword and discorporated them.” He says this last bit very quickly, as though saying it fast might make Crowley not notice it. 

“You _discorporated - “_ Crowley has never felt so much on his back foot in his very long life. “But you don’t kill people! You’re the nice one!”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes. “I didn’t kill anyone, I just discorporated them. They’re fine.” 

“Why didn’t you just _tell me_?” This is the crux of it, Crowley feels, the fact that Aziraphale took this on alone. 

”You love sleeping, and I was literally created for guard duty, after all. I don’t sleep anyway, so it wasn’t any trouble. And I couldn’t bear the idea of someone sneaking up on you while you were asleep - what if I didn’t get enough notice? - so after that I just started coming by every night. And a good thing, too - I assume that word has gotten around about my - our - antics down there, and demons looking for a leg up think you’d be quite the prize to bring back to the dukes of Hell,” 

Crowley groans and covers his face with his hands, a chill blanketing his skin and tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He feels as hollow as he had last night; all the hope carved out of him. How could he have ever thought they would be free? 

“No, no, wait, it’s alright.” Aziraphale reaches out and touches his arm. “They clearly weren’t coming on orders, they were far too disorganized. And there were a few the first couple of weeks, but none for a little while now; I think this may have been what they call an extinction event. One last try.” He slips his hand up to Crowley’s wrist to gently pull his still-shaking hand down and squeeze it reassuringly. “Honestly, with what you did last night, I’d be surprised if you haven’t bought us another few hundred years’ peace. That really was magnificent, Crowley.”

Crowley brings his other hand down and sees Aziraphale beaming at him. Aziraphale, his best friend, who had discorporated demons for him and nearly gotten himself destroyed trying to protect Crowley’s _beauty sleep_, because he is an _idiot_. He is an idiot, and Crowley loves him. Oh, Crowley realizes, feeling it fill up all the hollow places, like water from the Garden. Oh. Aziraphale is the stupidest genius on earth and I love him. He looks up at Aziraphale, who stood guard at his gate and saved him with or without a flaming sword, and who is still holding his hand, because, he realizes, _Aziraphale loves him too._ His entire body feels like it is lighting up in a way he hasn’t felt in millennia. 

Crowley lifts his hand toward Aziraphale’s cheek, but doesn’t touch, not just yet - it almost doesn’t feel like it’s allowed, still. But Aziraphale is looking at Crowley the way he does when he thinks Crowley’s not looking; the way Crowley knows in his bones he has been looking at Aziraphale too, for longer than he can even remember. 

And then Crowley can’t wait a second longer; he squeezes Aziraphale’s hand, still in his, and leans in and kisses him, softly, tenderly, and feels Aziraphale sigh and melt into him. They are _both_ idiots and Crowley is _never letting him go again_. He pulls his hand free gently and cups Aziraphale’s soft, well-known-much-loved face in both hands and pulls away slightly, stroking his cheekbones with both thumbs. “Together, now. Right? No more going it alone. Together.” He looks Aziraphale dead in the eye, and gets back a look so searching, he feels more than naked under it. He wants to close his eyes, to hide, but he makes himself look back; lets himself show on his face a little of the tsunami of previously-unrecognized _feelings_ that he finds crashing into his ribs. 

Aziraphale covers both of Crowley’s hands with his own, strong and dry and warm, just like in Crowley’s dreams, and smiles so softly Crowley almost can’t stand it. “Yes. Yes. _Together.”_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


————————————————-

(1) Sometimes as early as 8:30 or 9, especially in the winter, when the cold and early dark made him a little fuzzy around the edges. Rather than a virtuous early-to-bed, he told himself this was sloth and therefore perfectly sinful, as he rarely got up before noon, regardless of his bedtime.

(2) Otherwise, why bother sleeping? It’s not like he needed to.

(3) Aziraphale is always there, in the Garden, with his flaming sword. He’s in more of these dreams than Crowley would care to admit to, but this is one of his particular favorites. He hears the crackling flame, feels its heat as Aziraphale walks past (it really was flaming like anything). It’s comforting, in an odd way, knowing that Aziraphale has the sword in these dreams.

(4) Every day, from when he wakes up, through lunch and through dinner. And dessert. And drinks.

(5) Not being particularly given over to introspection is a trait shared by angels and demons alike - or at least this particular angel and demon.

(6) the Archangel Fucking Gabriel, indeed; more like the Fucking Fucker Gabriel, as far as Crowley was concerned.

(7) They both know he isn’t, really, but Crowley still worries.

(8) Even binary stars need a break from each other a few hours a day, lest they get (more) snappish.

(9) He thinks he may have been screaming?

(10) He wasn’t actually sure he had fully recovered from his world-saving histrionics at the airfield a few weeks ago.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Dream Lover" by Bobby Darin, because I am 100% That Basic.


End file.
